the general progress of civilization has been to
show us how such obstacles can be surmounted, even on a small scale. To
surmount them on a great scale will soon become the political problem of
Europe; and it is America which has set the example and indicated
the method.

Thus we may foresee in general outline how, through the gradual
concentration of the preponderance of physical power into the hands of
the most pacific communities, the wretched business of warfare must
finally become obsolete all over the globe. The element of distance is
now fast becoming eliminated from political problems, and the history of
human progress politically will continue in the future to be what it has
been in the past,--the history of the successive union of groups of men
into larger and more complex aggregates. As this process goes on, it may
after many more ages of political experience become apparent that there
is really no reason, in the nature of things, why the whole of mankind
should not constitute politically one huge federation,--each little
group managing its local affairs in entire independence, but relegating
all questions of international interest to the decision of one central
tribunal supported by the public opinion of the entire human race. I
believe that the time will come when such a state of things will exist
upon the earth, when it will be possible (with our friends of the Paris
dinner-party) to speak of the UNITED STATES as stretching from pole to
pole,--or, with Tennyson, to celebrate the "parliament of man and the
federation of the world." Indeed, only when such a state of things has
begun to be realized, can Civilization, as sharply demarcated from
Barbarism, be said to have fairly begun. Only then can the world be said
to have become truly Christian. Many ages of toil and doubt and
perplexity will no doubt pass by before such a desideratum is reached.
Meanwhile it is pleasant to feel that the dispassionate contemplation of
great masses of historical facts goes far towards confirming our faith
in this ultimate triumph of good over evil. Our survey began with
pictures of horrid slaughter and desolation: it ends with the picture of
a world covered with cheerful homesteads, blessed with a sabbath of
perpetual peace.

[Footnote 1: Freeman, "Norman Conquest," v. 482.]

[Footnote 2: Freeman, "Comparative Politics," 264.]

[Footnote 3: This is disputed, however. See Ross, "Early History of
Landholding among the